


and voiceless goes the stream

by niqaeli



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-14
Updated: 2004-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-30 18:56:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niqaeli/pseuds/niqaeli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein in BJ knows more than he wants and less than he needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and voiceless goes the stream

There are things that BJ doesn't understand. Things he sees every day, things he lives and does not comprehend.

And there are then the things he knows too well, that wishes he'd never heard of, much less seen, and then there are the things he himself has done. Cutting rope, tying the knots that will send him to Hell, one day.

Korea is a land of ghosts. There are things that die that don't lie down, and dead who do not sleep, not content to be memories. No one in Korea is unhaunted.

Hawkeye once described BJ as a fairytale prince with a strangely thin smile. His life had been a dream come true—his medical degree, his beautiful wife, and lovely home, and his darling baby girl, a perfect life, really.

BJ pointed out that he'd then been drafted and sent off to fight in a war, and Hawkeye's smile had widened a little. That, he'd said, is true, my prince. Despite what Mr. Disney would have us believe, fairytales don't have happy endings and fey creatures are unkind.

Hawkeye had been dead sober for that conversation.

BJ sometimes wants to ask Hawkeye how he knows so much about fey creatures and their stories. He never does. Sometimes, the ghosts that haunt Hawkeye are a little more solid than BJ would prefer. Sometimes, he can almost feel their claws digging into his own flesh.

It seems to BJ, late at night, when he wonders about such things, that there must have been magic on earth, once, startling, real magic must have been commonplace. And when he looks in Hawkeye's eyes, and sees the things that rattle there, he thinks that we forgot it all for very good reasons.

Science is safer. You don't risk your soul quite as much.

Korea is a land of spirits, for BJ, the acrid tastes of dust and blood stain his mouth, and his beautiful fairytale is a mirage in the distance, a faint memory he begins to doubt, at a times, a story he dreamt up to comfort himself in his misery.

Two days after Carlye transferred out, BJ had woken to see Hawkeye stadding over him wide and wild-eyed, sober, and staring. Hawk, he'd asked sleepily. Something wrong?

Hawkeye had turned away, walked to his cot and simply sat there silently.

Is something wrong? What's happened?

Have you ever heard the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, Hawkeye has asked. And BJ had said yes, what has that got to do with anything.

I'm the wolf, and you're the woodsman.

BJ had rubbed the rest of the sleep out of his eyes, and wondered if he should be calling Sidney. This was crazy, even for Hawkeye.

The Brothers Grimm, Hawk had said, were, actually, telling grim tales. Elves and fae folk are cruel creatures, stealing away babes and raising them as their own, killing and laughing.

I hate my mother, he'd said, and clawed at his arms and neck.

And then he'd grabbed the pitcher of moonshine and drank straight from it until he passed out.

BJ never has mentioned that incident to Potter or to Sidney. He never will.

He understands enough to know that Korea isn't the only thing that's damaged Hawkeye.

Sometimes he thinks he might try to talk to Radar about it. Radar knows things he can't know, and isn't as innocent or dumb as he acts. BJ thinks that maybe Radar does it all just to keep people out—when they just see a dumb kid, people don't ask questions. There's things that Radar knows that nobody should know about other people and if anybody ever got in there, in where the knowledge is, it'd hurt everyone.

He probably never will. Radar wouldn't tell him much anyway.

So BJ'll just wash his hands in blood and pretend that he can't see the wraiths in the air, pretend that they aren't more solid to him than his wife's own flesh, he'll pretend that blood and pain and damaged things and broken people aren't more beautiful than his ephemeral glamour of perfection.

He'll pretend that he isn't broken, himself, that he doesn't have his own weather bones, and he'll believe it for a little while.

But when the wind howls with a banshee's tortured scream, he'll roll over in his sleep.

And dream.


End file.
